POSTER BOY

In Poster Boy, Claudia Shaw Chan (of ABC’s Collectors) celebrates the fringes of the Sydney urban landscape. Her first solo exhibition, Shaw aims to showcase the decaying graphics of worn street posters through the immediacy of the digital camera. The images are a dialogue about the fleeting presence of time and memory in our public spaces.

Consisting of approximately 20 pieces, each combines brash colour, bold words and iconic images in ripped and layered collage. The result is a series of multi-textured and fragmented vignettes, which are visually dynamic and thought-provoking.

The most notable work, visually and emotively, is Spiderman. The enlarged eyes of the legendary superhero dominate the page and overlook a mishmash of red, black and white letters and shapes. This comic book figure seems menacing rather than a symbol of good.

The Existence of Life shows a faceless man in suit, situated above a collection of jagged shapes of white and greyish blue hues. The disjointed statement, ‘The Existence of Life: Highly Overrated Phenomenon,’ cuts diagonally through the middle, stamping it with an aura of melancholy and intrigue.

The exhibition’s only downfall is the layout of the collection within the space. A portion of the series sits above the staircase, while another is placed on a wall behind a desk, making it difficult to examine each piece as closely as you might like.